Kawhi leads balanced Raptors attack over visiting Nets

The Brooklyn Nets might be on the rise, but they were no match for the red hot Raptors on Friday night.

Led by Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, Serge Ibaka and a revitalized bench, the home side ran over a Brooklyn team that had been rocketing up the standings since stunning Toronto in overtime back in December.

Leonard had been spotted outside the arena without a winter coat by a reporter earlier in the day, but he was anything but cold in this one. He took a ton of shots in the first quarter to get into a rhythm, important since Brooklyn’s best performance of the game came early, jumping out to a 35-28 lead.

The Raptors looked lost defensively, but pulled it together and held the Nets to only 18 points in the second quarter, with Leonard taking over.

The third frame was much the same, with Leonard still getting wherever he wanted to and Ibaka finding the touch from short range.

“I think we started getting back a little bit better,” said head coach Nick Nurse. “Our transition defence started out kind of poor and we started showing a little bit more length and deflections.

“We got a lot of tip-outs and run-outs from primarily playing good defence.”

Point guard Fred VanVleet, a big part of the extremely effective bench group, agreed with his coach.

“Defensive pressure,” he said. “Made some adjustments, started switching, getting a little more aggressive and obviously the same formula we always try to do: Create havoc on the defensive end, get out in transition, get easy points.”

Even with Kyle Lowry slowly finding his way since returning from injury — he attempted only three shots, scoring four points, but added eight assists — Toronto has now won six of its past seven games, including four straight and leads the NBA with 32 victories.

“We started getting to the rim a little bit more. We started moving the ball,” Nurse said of the suddenly surging offence. “I think we ended up with 32 assists tonight, which is a big number.”

After Nurse pulled his starters in the fourth quarter, Brooklyn went on a 13-0 run. However, Toronto’s 26-point lead was too large to rally all the way back from.

D’Angelo Russell again piled up the points against Toronto (24, along with nine assists). Shabazz Napier added 16 off of the bench, but usual Raptor-killer Spencer Dinwiddie shot just 1-for-7 from the field.

NEW RAPTOR INTRODUCED

The Raptors officially welcomed swingman Patrick McCaw, even though he wasn’t in the lineup against the Nets. McCaw said that when the Raptors reached out to him after he was released by Cleveland, he made the easy call to sign, feeling Toronto was a great fit.

“I just kind of felt like it was right and I could fit in right away so I went with Toronto,” McCaw said before the game.

“I’ve been watching the team play all year. They get after it on both ends of the floor … defend, play multiple positions.”

Nurse isn’t sure what McCaw’s role will be, but likes that he has big-game experience, having been a part of Golden State Warriors championship teams before a scary back injury put him in basketball limbo.

“He’s what about 6-foot-5, 6-6, so that puts him on the perimeter for us. After that, we don’t really know,” Nurse said. “Hopefully he can space and attack and handle the ball and he can defend. Those are the things he’s supposed to be able to do. Pretty interesting defender. I think he sees the game pretty well from what I’ve watched, film-wise. He’s a little bit of a risk-taker defensively, but that’s OK,” Nurse said.

“We like that, we like that, too. So we’ll just see. We’ll throw him in there, play the one, two, three, wherever he fits in.”

NO HARD FEELINGS

The situation between McCaw and the Warriors seemd a bit bizarre from the outside looking in — he was off for ages until Cleveland gave him an offer sheet that Golden State declined to match, than the Cavs let him go after only a couple of games — but McCaw played down any of that talk.

“Nothing went sideways. It was just a personal decision for me to move on,” McCaw said. “I loved my time there. The organization, coaches, players helped me grow and develop as a young man coming in at 21 years old to the NBA. There was no better situation for me to learn and grow. It’s no bad blood, it’s nothing but love for Golden State and what they did for me.”

RESPECT FOR NETS

Brooklyn had been a pushover for a long time, with just one win over Toronto in the previous 13 meetings (that can happen when you make one of the worst trades in NBA history as the Nets did with Boston, and the Raptors once did with the New Jersey Nets, but we digress), but not anymore.

“It’s a good team, man,” said Nurse before the game. “(They’re) 13-4 in their last 17. Somebody should talk about that. Everybody should talk about it, 13-4 in their last 17. I’ve been hearing about Boston’s 15-5, Boston’s 15-5. 13-4’s pretty good, too. These guys are playing well. (Head coach Kenny Atkinson) has done a great job. They’ve got a system they’re running, got guys brought in to fit it. They’ve had some injuries and maybe found some better pieces along the way that fit in, that fit the system a little better than the guys they thought. They’ve done a great job handling the injuries, playing the system, playing hard, making shots.”

Brooklyn has overcome the loss of star guard Caris LeVert.

“I see DeMarre Carroll playing as well, shooting as well as he can shoot it. (Jared) Dudley’s playing a good role. So there’s some veteran guys that are consistently there for them,” Nurse said.

“Ed Davis is playing great, rebounding, another veteran guy. So just a sprinkle of veteranism night in and night out goes a long way, I think, around some of those other guys. Dinwiddie is awesome, Russell is playing great, Jarrett Allen is young but also pretty consistent at what he’s doing night in and night out.”

AROUND THE RIM

Former Raptors Davis and Carroll are both playing well for the streaking Nets and enjoying life in Brooklyn. In pre-game chats, both found the idea of a potential Nets-Raptors first round playoff series intriguing. The veterans got the two larger locker areas in the visiting locker room and Carroll said the group is itching for LeVert’s return to see what it can do when at full strength … Having completed a three-game homestand, Toronto hits Washington for a 1 p.m., tip on Sunday, before a big tilt in Boston on Wednesday.

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